UMass Medical School’s Nicole Trask, PharmD, explains why CAR-T cell therapies are a key new treatment for hematological malignancies and outlines new therapies in the pipeline in a podcast for First Report Managed Care.
There are currently two CAR-T cell therapies on the market that have proven effective in fighting blood cancer in patients, said Trask, a clinical consultant pharmacist for Clinical Pharmacy Services. She outlines why hematological malignancies are better targets for CAR-T therapies, and how they can work across multiple indications.
The current cost of a full CAR-T therapy, “to manage the side effects could be as high as $1.5 million per patient which is just astounding,” Trask said. She notes that costs could be coming down in the future as new forms of CAR-T therapy in the pharmacy pipeline could allow for more precise dosing and be available in an outpatient and off-the-shelf format.
Trask provides prospective monitoring of the pharmaceutical pipeline as well as budget impact modeling and serves as editor-in-chief of the annual Pipeline Trends publication. Secretary of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy’s Northeast Regional Affiliate, Trask also serves as the lead pharmacist for the Special Populations Pharmacist Team, providing pharmacy consultation services to medically complex Medicaid members and their families.